President’s Message

of the executive board that includes our Parliamentarian, Joe Coyne, PhD and, of course, the tireless efforts of Central Office staff, Christine Gurriere, Ana DeMeo, and Jennifer Cooper.

We moved forward on traditional guild issues this year. A prime example of this is the progress on our bill to allow graduate students and early career individuals, working to meet the requirements for licensure, to include all pre-doctoral supervision hours toward their license, and to no longer require that any must be acquired post-doctorly. Another example is that the Committee on Legislative Affairs (COLA), under Barry Katz’s leadership, worked hard to increase the transparency of NJPA’s legislative efforts, so that our membership can stay abreast of what bills we are following and where we are focusing our resources.

We also focused on efforts to expand beyond traditional guild issues (Murray, 2019) and looked at what psychology can say and do regarding many of the significant social issues that are faced in New Jersey. The Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (CODI) formed a subcommittee, Immigration Emergency Action Group (IEAG) to to the humanitarian crisis created by the separation of immigrant families detained at four detention centers within New Jersey. The IEAG will look to collaborate with other agencies in its efforts to address the mental health needs of detained individuals. We also issued statements and endorsed statements that were based on psychological principles and consistent with the NJPA mission. This allows NJPA to use psychological science to enter into, and contribute more broadly to, the dialogue on issues related to the psychological well-being of the diverse residents of New Jersey. We also continued to develop our collaboration with the New Jersey Association of Black Psychologists (NJABPsi) and the Latinex Mental Health Association of New Jersey (LMNANJ). Our collaboration is accomplished through an affiliation of co-equals called the Inter-Mental Health and Psychological Association Coalition (IMPAC). This expansion beyond traditional guild issues is part of the changing face of professional psychology. Thank you! ❖

Reference

Murray, Morgan (Summer 2019). Expanding the Definition of Guild.